Most Overpriced Places In The U.S. 2005

That may not be how the old saw goes, but its one of the things we gleaned from the fourth edition of our "Most Overpriced Places" study. A couple of cities fell off the list, and others shuffled places. For the most part, the roster is still made up of metropolitan areasthat will suck dollars from your wallet in a flash.

Now: Plenty of places are expensive. You probably think where you live is far too costly, especially since real estate costs keep heading north around the country. (Forbes.com recently totaled up what it costs to live well around the country. To read the stories, click here.) Movie tickets used to cost a quarter, and with a million dollars you could get yourself a mansion. In Los Angeles this year, the median home price rose above a half-million dollars, according to the California Association of Realtors. And dont even get us started about the cost of catching a film.

Still, if jobs are plentiful and incomes are rising, the real effect of increasing costs is small. But when prices go up, when employment is stagnant and when incomes are flat, well, thats when things are overpriced.

To determine the ten most overpriced places in the country, we started with the 150 cities examined in Forbes 2005 list of the Best Places for Business and Careers. They were ranked from 1 to 150, with 150 being the worst. Weextracted the rankings for job growth, income growth and cost of living (which includes the cost of housing, utilities, transportation and other expenditures), then added to the mix a housing affordability index from research firm Economy.com. The index measures how much of a local median-priced home (the price at which 50% of homes are more expensive and 50% are less expensive) you can buy if you earn the local median income, given current interest rates. We totaled everything to see which cities come out on top--or on the bottom--depending on your perspective.

Seattle, once again, took the highest spot on the "Overpriced List," because its still recovering from the dot-com blowout five years ago. New York and San Francisco, which have hard-earned reputations for being super-pricey cities, made the cut, as did a couple of New Jersey locations.

Miami, on the other hand, dropped from the list, but came in at a close No. 12. Job growth there is solid, but the cost of housing is still high. Milwaukee came in just outside the top ten, as well,with its expensive housing.

In fact, housing costs were a major factor in determining the rankings. Despite all the talk of a bubble that is sure to burst, real estate continues racing up a steep price hill, and the National Association of Realtors expects 2005 to be another record-setting year in the U.S.

If youre unfortunate enough to live in an overpriced city, stop your whining. After all, there must be something keeping you there, whether its the museums or the easy commute. And if youre lucky enough to live outside of the top ten, count your blessings--and your dollars.